Monday, April 19, 2010

contemporary critics have trouble considering garbarek as an ayler-oriented player, despite jan's frequent allusions in interview to his influence. yet obviously it is part of any player's apprenticeship to work through the techniques and ideas of the masters, assimilating elements relevant to his own conception. in any case, triptykon makes the connections plain enough. "bruremarsj", the first norwegian folk song on a garbarek record, has a clear-cut affinity to such ayler epics as "truth is marching in" and was approached for exactly this reason.... the triptykon group was europe's equivalent to the ayler/peacock/murray trio, its music revealing a comparable nakedness and troubling beauty. albert's notion of his sound as a "love cry" is also pertinent when one considers the yearning, imploring edge of jan's tone.

the songs of the troubadours are the most evocative and alluring remnants of that culture, which once flourished in the former roman empire that is now southern france - provence, proensa. this recital takes words and music from the crumbled remains of that epoch and fashions them into song, well aware that the music is so deeply sunk in time that no one knows precisely how the songs were uttered. yet, left alone, away from theories and unencumbered with elaborate musical arrangements, these songs are remarkable selfsufficient. each melody has a firm, distinct character of its own and enables the poetry to be enchanted into song, without compromising the subtleties of the verse and linguistic color, which is so often the case with more "fixed" settings of words and music. the participation of instruments, by no means essential for any one piece, is here used as an aural counterfoil to the voice, providing interludes between strophes, linking song to song, and sometimes fleshing out the modal shape of a tune to form a background accompaniment.

paul hillier

- above quote works well as a description, or an example, of one of the many unique qualities of the ecm/manfred eicher sound.- also unique to the label's vision is the relationship of the music (and the quality of sound) to the sparseness of the stones and rocks in the black & white landscape (quite exaggerated by the design and typography).the camera works similar to the recording studio in capturing and heightening (and also abstracting) rare moments of subtlety and beauty.

why is the bedroom so coldturned away on your sideis my timing that flawedour respect (feelings) run so dryyet there's still this appealthat we've kept through our livesbut love, love will tear us apart againlove, love will tear us apart again

do you cry out in your sleepall my failings exposedand there's a taste in my mouthas desperation takes holdis it something so goodjust can't function no morebut love, love will tear us apart again...

listening/re-listening to many classic ecm albums, to get better acquainted with the giant catalogue (see pages 359-441 [1969-2009] in windfall light), using 2 recent publications on the history/recordings as reference.thinking of connections between musicians, photographers and graphic designers working within the label .